Column: Graham has set the gold standard of Christian service

By the Rev. Darrin Wood, First Baptist Church

Published
3:45 pm CST, Friday, February 23, 2018

Throughout my life, Dr. Graham has stood as the gold standard of Christian service. That doesn’t mean he was a perfect man -- certainly he had his faults -- but his legacy of passion, zealousness for the Gospel, his love for his wife and family and his consistency to his calling mark his life as one worth of emulation. His well-documented life is a testament to a life lived to the honor of Christ. He has led many out of darkness and into Christ’s light and has challenged even more toward his example.

When I was college student in Dallas, Dr. Graham’s ministry frequently used our campus as a call center. When people would call for spiritual encouragement, no matter where he was speaking, the phone would ring on our campus. Using trained and equipped volunteers, call center operators would receive the calls, encourage and counsel people as best they could and then arrange for a follow up visit with a local church or ministry. As one of those operators, that was one my first experiences in ministry. It gave me the chance to hear Dr. Graham’s messages and to be a part of the spiritual development of those responding. The training I received in preparation for those opportunities has paid off many more times than I ever dreamed.

So what do we take from his example?

--Love Jesus more than success. Dr. Graham never sought the limelight but rather constantly tried to turn it toward Christ.

--Love your wife and family. By establishing the protocol of never being alone with any woman other than his wife, he wasn’t expressing mistrust of women; he was expressing his great love for Ruth Bell and his passionate desire for her to know with confidence that she could trust him during the long days .

-- Love people enough to speak to them on their level. His powerful sermons reflect a seventh-grade vocabulary and that’s by design. He wanted to make sure everyone could understand the point of his messages and most all of them had the same point: Jesus is the Savior you need.

-- Leave footprints for others to follow. One of the things I have always valued about Dr. Graham’s consistent message is that he constantly sought to teach others. In Robert Coleman’s book “The Master Plan of Evangelism,” Dr Graham said, “If I had it to do over again, I would invest my life in 12 other men.” He understood that no matter how long his life was, he was only here for a time.